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Pulau Pinang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island,
located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of
Malacca. The island of Pulau Pinang is called Penang Island or Penang City.
Penang state is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the
south. It is composed of two parts Penang Island, where the seat of
government is, and Seberang Perai (formerly Province Wellesley in
English) on the Malay Peninsula.
One of the very first Englishmen to reach Penang was the navigator and
privateer Sir James Lancaster who on 10 April 1591, commanding the
Edward Bonadventure, set sail from Plymouth for the East Indies, reaching
Penang in June 1592, remaining on the island until September of the same
year and pillaging every vessel he encountered, only to return to England
in May 1594.
Before the modern history, Penang, as a part of Kedah, was mostly
dominated by Siam Kingdom. Until in 1909, when the British's threatening
forced Siam to release its Malay states of Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, and
Perlis to be protected by the British. In exchange, the Federated Malay
States loaned 4,000,000 to complete the railway system between Siam
and Malaya. After influence free from Siam, Sultan Abdullah Mukarram
Shah of Kedah leased the island to Captain Francis Light, an English
trader-adventurer working for the Madras-based firm, Jourdain Sullivan
and de Souza and the East India Company, in exchange for military
protection from Siamese and Burmese armies who were threatening
Kedah. For Light, Penang was a "convenient magazine for trade" and an
ideal location to curtail French expansion in Indochina and Dutch foothold
in Sumatra. On 11 August 1786, Francis Light landed on Penang at what is
later called Fort Cornwallis and took formal possession of the island "in the
name of His Britannic Majesty, King George III and the Honourable East
India Company", and renamed the island Prince of Wales Island in honour
of the heir to the British throne but the name never caught on. Penang
was Britain's first settlement in Southeast Asia, and was one of the first
establishments of the second British Empire after the loss of its North
American colonies. In Malaysian history, the occasion marked the
beginning of more than a century of British involvement in Malaya.
Unfortunately for the Sultan, the EAC's new governor-general Charles
Cornwallis made it clear that he could not be party to the Sultan's disputes
with the other Malay princes, or promise to protect him from the Siamese
or Burmese. Unbeknownst to Sultan Abdullah, Light had decided to
conceal the facts of the agreement from both parties. When Light reneged
on his promise of protection, the Sultan tried unsuccessfully to recapture
the island in 1790, and the Sultan was forced to cede the island to the
company for an honorarium of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. Light
established Penang as a free port to entice traders away from nearby
Dutch trading posts. Trade in Penang grew exponentially soon after its
founding - incoming ships and boats to Penang increased from 85 in 1786
to 3569 in 1802.
After Light's demise, Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Wellesley, later to be Duke
of Wellington, arrived in Penang to co-ordinate the defences of the island.
In 1800, Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Leith secured a strip of land
across the channel as a buffer against attacks and named it Province
Wellesley (today Seberang Perai). The annual payment to Sultan of Kedah
was increased to 10,000 Spanish dollars per annum after the acquisition.
Today, the Penang state government still pays RM 18,800.00 to the Sultan
of Kedah annually.
Colonial Penang thrived from trade in pepper and spices, Indian piece
goods, betel nut, tin, opium, and rice. The Bengal Presidency realised of
Penang's potential as an alternative to Dutch Moluccas as a source of
spice production. Development of export crops became the chief means of
covering administrative costs in Penang. The development of the spice
economy drove the movement of Chinese settlers to the island, which was
actively encouraged by the British. However, Penang port's initial preeminence was later supplanted by Singapore owing to its superior
geographical location, but Penang remained an important feeder to
Singapore funnelling the exports meant for global shipping lines by
ocean-going ships which had bypassed other regional ports. The
replacement of sailing vessels by steamships in the mid-19th century
cemented Penang's secondary importance after Singapore. Penang's most
important trading partners were China, India, Siam, Sumatra, Java, Britain,
as well as other Strait Settlements.
As of 2010 the population of Penang is 45% Muslim, 36% Buddhist (in the
Theravada, Mahayana and increasingly also Vajrayana traditions),9%
Hindu, 5% Christian (Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, the largest
denominations of which are the Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists,
Anglican, Presbyterian and Baptists), 4.6% Taoist or Chinese religion
follower, 1% follower of other religions, and 0.4% non-religious.